Remember Iran: An EA Special --- Three Years Ago Today, A Moment of Compromise?

Silent protest march, 16 June 2009

---

Re-reading our coverage from three years ago today, I was surprised. The following months of conflict and repression had eroded any memory of the moment when --- perhaps unsettled by the mass march of the previous day demanding a fair election, perhaps playing for time --- the regime had offered a glimmer of compromise.

At least eight protesters had been slain the previous evening, several students at Tehran University were dead after raids by security forces, and hundreds of people were detained, but the Supreme Leader was ordering the Guardian Council to consider a re-count of the Presidential ballots and was meetings with representatives of all four candidates, asking them to pursue "national unity".

We re-live the moment, re-posting our Live Coverage and the analysis by EA's Chris Emery, "Four Scenarios for a Vote Re-Count". 

There are other surprises as well. On 16 June 2009, I was on Al Jazeera's Inside Story with Professor Anoush Ehteshami and Tehran University's Seyed Mohammad Marandi --- whom I had known for almost a decade --- to discuss the mass protests of the previous day and the Supreme Leader's moves for a possible recount. 

Marandi is now known as one of the most strident defenders, in English-language media, of the regime's legitimacy and its crackdown on opposition. Yet in this episode, he has yet to adopt the position that Presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have pursued "sedition" by calling out riotous supporters on the streets. Instead, he notes without criticism the presence of "both sides" --- the Green Movement and Ahmadinejad's supporters --- in making their cases over the election.

And my own position? I don't think I would change a single word of this, three years later: "I don't think we'll ever know if there was fraud committed last Friday....I think the issue is transparency....And I think there's also a power struggle going on within the political and clerical elites."

We re-post the full episode.

EARLIER COVERAGE

Click to read more ...

Remember Iran Flashback: 16 June 2009 --- A Compromise by the Regime?

Wounded Protester, 15 June 20092220 GMT: Politically, the evening highlight appears to be the Supreme Leader's meeting with representatives of the four Presidential campaigns, calling for them to join together for "national unity". The move seems to be more of an attempt to buy some more political time while the Guardian Council tries to sort out its options --- all candidates will have been told of the necessity to keep demonstrations non-violent and non-threatening to the regime.

Elsewhere, chatter about gatherings has died down (it is, after all, 3 a.m. in Iran), so the hope is that there will be none of the violence that was feared earlier today.

Click to read more ...

Remember Iran Flashback: 15 June 2009 --- The March of the Millions

---

EA's Live Coverage three years ago today --- the world is taken by surprise as more than a million Iranians, joined by Presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, take to the streets of Tehran to challenge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's supposed election. However, there are signs that the regime will defy the protesters and confirm Ahmadinejad's "victory", and there is ominous news of more detentions and deaths of demonstrators at the end of the evening:

2230 GMT: The end of a long and, for many, amazing day in Iran with the hopes of the mass movement balanced by rumours of deaths, beatings, and detentions (one activist writes of many people being taken to Evin Prison). Still a state of tension, with uncertainty over casualty figures from this afternoon at Azadi Square and no firm confirmation of the big march for 5 p.m. tomorrow (local time) in Tehran. Tonight, there are sounds of ambulances and police sirens and occasional gunshots.

Click to read more ...

Remember Iran: A Preview of the Presidential Election (11 June 2009)

Mir Hossein Mousavi with Al Jazeera English, 11 June 2009

---

On my visits to Iran, and afterwards in correspondence with friends and colleagues, I have learned about and been reminded often of the "third generation", those Iranians who came of age after the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Quite often, the third generation was characterised as detached from the Revolution, disillusioned, dissatisfied. In recent weeks, however, the third generation --- and more than a few other Iranians --- have been in rallies, on the streets (on Monday, there was the largest outside gathering in more than a decade), and, yes, even on Facebook with excitement and some expectation.

I don't know if this constitutes a "Gradual Revolution", another phrase that I have frequently heard. I certainly would not twist and misrepresent it with the politically-loaded "Velvet Revolution". But, again as an outsider, there has been an opening of debate and thus of political space which could be significant not just for this election but for years to come.

Put simply --- and anticipating Western headlines after Friday about "The Obama Effect" in Iran, about "moderates" v. "hard-liners", about reinforcement or downfall of an Axis running from Iran to Syria to Lebanon's Hezbollah to Palestine's hamas --- these events first and foremost are not about the US. They are not about a clash in the Middle East, in nuclear arsenals, between civilisations.

These events are about Iranians: their concerns, their hopes, their ideals. And, whatever the outcome tomorrow and in the second round, they should be respected as such.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (5 June): The House Arrests

See also Iran Music Feature: Rapper Shahin Najafi Responds to Death Threats...With a New Song
The Latest from Iran (4 June): The Supreme Leader's "Slap in the Face" for His Officials

---

Mehdi Karroubi with family on Monday1425 GMT: Nuclear Watch. Ali Akbar Velayati, the Supreme Leader's advisor on foreign affairs, has reiterated Tehran's general line two weeks before discussions in Moscow with the 5+1 Powers (US, UK, France, Germany, China, Russia): "I hope the P5+1 group recognizes Iran's inalienable nuclear right within the framework of the NPT and refrains from sitting on the sidelines. By accepting Iran's right to use peaceful nuclear energy, the forthcoming talks in Moscow should reach a favorable result."

What is not established, beyond this declaration, is whether Iran is ready to give up enrichment of uranium of 20% on its soil and, if so, in return for which concessions by the "West".

Click to read more ...

Iran Letter: An Imprisoned Blogger Writes the Supreme Leader

Hossein Ronaghi MalekiI am of the belief, every human being’s silence against oppression and injustice is a betrayal of the innocent blood of the martyrs of this land....

I will repeat a quote from the Exalted Prophet Mohamad: “The land and government will survive under blasphemy but will not last under oppression.”

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (20 May): A Tip of the Hat to President Obama?

Nikahang Kowsar portrays a President Obama tying up Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the cord of sanctions, "A good boy doesn't play with nukes"

See also The Latest from Iran (19 May): Bad Numbers for Ahmadinejad and Regime's "Islamic Awakening"

---

1727 GMT: All the President's Men. Mehr reports that Hamid Pourmohammadi, the former deputy head of the Central Bank, is continuing to attend important meetings of the Ahmadinejad administration even though he is accused of playing a part in the $2.6 billion bank fraud and is currently free on bail.

Mehr published a photo of Pourmohammadi at the recent meeting of the Petrochemical Industry Development Committee with 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

Pourmohammadi’s presence at government meetings has also been challenged by leading MP Ahmad Tavakoli on his website Alef.

1723 GMT: The Revolutionary Guards Respond. Revolutionary Guards Commander Ramezan Sharif has hid back at the accusations of conservative MP Ali Motahari (see 1349 GMT) --- Sharif said the Guards had no role in Parliamentary elections and Motahari should present any evidence that he has.

The commander added that prosecution of Motahari for libel was possible.

Click to read more ...

Iran 1st-Hand: Reports from a Controlled Election (Secor)

Sweeping Up Campaign Flyers, 25 FebruaryIran, vast and restive, had a way of revealing itself, even in bad times. The Green Movement had been forced underground, but it remained a preoccupation, even among hard-liners. One day, my handlers directed me to a campaign event: a debate among conservative parliamentary candidates at Tehran University, organized by the Basij. The room was filled, and my translator and I stood in the back.

A brave soul approached the microphone and inquired, in Farsi, “If we object to the policies of the nezam, what recourse do we have?” In Iran, the word nezam — “the system” — refers to the country’s unusual political structure, which combines a theocracy, ruled by a Supreme Leader and his executors, and a republic, with elected officials and public debates.

One of the panelists, Hamid Rasai, a white-turbaned cleric in an olive-green robe, replied, “Most people don’t think like you. Most people are from the Basij. You who complain are in the minority.”

The crowd roared with applause. Rasai represented the Steadfastness Front, an arch-conservative group of parliamentary candidates associated with a cleric, in Qom, who had once remarked that anyone offering a new interpretation of Islam should be punched in the mouth.

Rasai’s dismissive remark was the reverse of a claim that I had often heard from Iranian reformists: that only a fifth of the populace supported the Basij and that most Iranians were reformists or liberal-minded. Neither appraisal was verifiable in a country without reliable polling. But their concurrence conveyed a different kind of truth. Iranian society had become not just divided but adversarial, with entire communities denying one another’s existence.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (10 May): Supreme Leader Comments on Detained Mousavi and Karroubi

2020 GMT: Sanctions Watch. For weeks, we have questioned public proclamation of India defying sanctions and increasing oil shipments from Iran, arguing that private discussions were weaning Delhi off Tehran's crude with assurances of alternative supplies.

Confirmation comes today in the report that India's oil imports from Tehran fell about 34% in April compared with March.

Reflecting the Government-to-Government talks between Washington and Delhi, including a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week, State-run buyers are at the forefront of reductions, leaving privately-owned Essar the biggest Indian client of Iran.

India's total oil imports from Iran in April fell to about 269,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 409,000 bpd in March and from about 449,000 bpd in April 2011.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (3 May): The Oil Squeeze

See also Iran Feature: Celebration and Censorship --- At the Tehran International Book Fair
Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Journalists and Students in Prison, Workers' Day Cancelled, & More
The Latest from Iran (2 May): Books and Politics

---

2123 GMT: Elections Watch. Alef claims that the Internet TV of the conservative/principlist Islamic Constancy Front has been filtered ahead of tomorrow's second round of Parliamentary elections.

The Constancy Front has been the rival of the Unity Front, the main faction seeking to represent conservatives and principlists.

2115 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Ayatollah Dastgheib has challenged the regime's definition of "mohareb", those who commit "war against God". Dastgheib said the mohareb were those who "confront people with arms", not those who criticise rulers.

Dastgheib added tht all clerics should ask officials to release political prisoners. He said opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, in their 15th month under strict house arrest, "have just demanded that the Qur'an and Constitution should be observed".

Click to read more ...